I'm Totally In Kenny's Head

Is it a coincidence that merely hours after I called Kenny Williams a moron, and told him letting Mark Buehrle go could cost him his job, that the Sox and Mark agreed to an extension?

Yes. But don't tell me that!

I'm totally taking credit for this one, White Sox fans. So you should probably thank me.

In case you haven't heard the details, which I know you have, here they are again.

It's a 4-year deal worth $56 million, and it also holds a no-trade clause for the first two years. After that the no-trade clause becomes unneccesary because Mark will be a Ten and Five guy. Meaning that since he's been in the Majors for 10 years, at least five of which with his current team, he has to agree to any trade before it can be official.

And of course, everybody's friends again.

"There were a lot of people who had to be involved in working to get this done," said Buehrle before heading back home to Missouri for the All-Star break. "My agent [Jeff Berry], he works for me and listened to us. Me and my wife [Jamie] realized how much we wanted to stay here.

"Obviously, it came from the White Sox side, too. [General manager] Kenny [Williams], [chairman] Jerry [Reinsdorf], [assistant general manager] Rick [Hahn], all those guys. It takes two sides to get something done."

Even Kenny is all tingly inside.

"I have to applaud Mark Buehrle and his camp on the way that he's handled this entire situation," Williams said. "Without the extreme love for the city and the desire to remain a White Sox, this would not have gotten done.

"He expressed some desire to stay with us and we tried to make as many concessions as we could without hurting our future and ability to maneuver. It just kind of came together."

By make as many concessions as they could Kenny means, "We just kept telling him 'No deal.'"

Still, all that matters is that Mark will be here for four more seasons, and that's all that I care about. I'm still not too pleased with the way Williams and the Sox handled this entire thing, but I got what I wanted in the end, and as long as I'm happy that's all that matters.

Now we can get back to all this business about how bad this team has sucked this season.